I am a homeless in São Paulo. I think I am very lucky because I found the perfect place to sleep.
I live in the area called Lapa do Baixo, and the street I am sleeping on, is a famous industrial street. You can find many factories here. The reason why I say my spot is the perfect spot is because I live in a corner; therefore, it is quite spacial.
Plus, there is a roof on top of me, therefore, even when the vicious sun grilling every piece of the ground, my corner is always shaded. When the city rains, even though sometimes the wind will blow the rain in, I have an umbrella. I will open the umbrella and put it on the ground, in front of me. In this case, I can avoid most of the rain, which is a privilege compares to other homeless in the city.
From Monday to Friday, if I wake up early, from about 7am to 9am, I will see lots of people passing by, going into their factories for work. They never bother me. Actually, most of the times, they will try to avoid me. When they come near to my corner, they will cross the street to the other side. I never minded this, it is actually more convenient for me.
About 30 second away from where I stay, there is a bridge. Lots of people will come from there in the morning. To me, that bridge is very convenient because they got people to clean that bridge almost everyday. Therefore, sometimes when I cannot find a place for toilet, I will simple do it on the bridge. I do sometimes wonder, people who cross that bridge in the morning must feeling shitting when they go pass by my shit. But, frankly, I don't give a damn about it; that's none of my business.
There are a lot of people like me living in this city. Doesn't matter if it is the police or others who live in the city, everyone is very used to our existence. For example, if you go to the most famous street of the city, Paulista Ave., during the day, you will a lot of hipsters selling weird stuffs on the side of the street. Those people are all homeless. During the night, they will take out their tents and camp on the street.
Those homeless at least work, there are many others like me, who don't even bother to work. Many of them like to live under the bridge. For instance, there is bridge near the Republic area, there are about 20-30 homeless sleep under the bridge in a line. Other than the bridge, sleeping in front of a shop after it closed is another popular choice, because you can use the roof of a shop as a cover.
To be honest with you, I really don't like living in a group, so, I live here. I have the entire corner to myself.
My day to day companions are the pigeons on the street. Every morning, they will come in groups and find their food from the gutters. These are not pretty pigeons. They are all mixed breed. Their feather are often mixed of white and grey colors and some mixtures, I have to say, are simply ugly.
I see these pigeons every day. I found it interesting that they normally have 1 or 2 leaders standing to watch out for the group while the rest of the group eating. Nonetheless, once a while, you will still find 1 to 2 pigeons' bodies flatten by cars passing by. Pigeons don't bleed. Their dead bodies are just a bunch of feather laying on the street. Cars will drive over their bodies over and over again without notice.
Sometimes I feel like, my life is just like those feather.
I arrived in São Paulo in January and now it is near the end of October. Minus the two months back in Vancouver, I have been in São Paulo for almost half a year, however, I never really wrote about São Paulo, because I simply don't like this city.
Finally, I have decided to leave this place in December. Before I leave, I do want to start to write about this city in my eyes; why it breaks my heart every day.
São Paulo is Brazil's financial center, it is even the financial center of the entire South America; 25% of the Brazil's GDP is being produced here. The entire Brazilian population wants to move to São Paulo to find a job and every one from São Paulo will speak with pride of their postal code. Therefore, it is quite common for people to connect São Paulo with great things, the bars and cafes, the arts, the open attitude, the fantastic nightlife and etc.
No doubt, São Paulo has lots of rich people. There are even more Michelin-three-star restaurants in São Paulo than in Vancouver. São Paulo is also a city with the most airports for helicopters. Many foreigners, my CEMS classmates had a fantastic experience in here, especially those who like Tinder.
However, because my job works with waste pickers, I taught English in an area that used to be a "favela", and my current salary is just like every other middle class in São Paulo, I saw a very different São Paulo from many foreigners.
I feel sad living here almost every day.
The homeless in this article is the homeless that lives near where I work, I pass by him everyday on my way to work and off work. I cross that bridge every day twice. I walk pass those dead pigeons every day twice. That bridge with 20-30 homeless sleeping underneath, is where my bus pass by every day. To avoid seeing that sceen, I always try to sit on the other side of the bus.
Through my words, I hope you see what I see, you feel what I feel; my feeling of depress, of powerless, of wanting to leave.
-- Oct. 20th, 2019
@ Casa Bauducco, Shopping cidade São Paulo